The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] on Friday struck down [opinion, PDF] a portion of an Ohio law [Ohio Rev Code § 3599.45] that prohibited doctors who treat Medicaid patients from contributing to the political campaigns of candidates for state attorney general or county prosecutor. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the law was an unconstitutional restriction of free speech [AP report] stating "[t]he statute here restricts the First Amendment rights of nearly 100,000 Medicaid providers who do not commit fraud, based on an attenuated concern about a relative handful of providers who do." The Ohio law was enacted in 1978 and it was intended as an anti-corruption measure to protect against Medicaid fraud. The suit was filed by nine Cleveland-area doctors in 2010 after they were told they could not contribute to the re-election campaign of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray [official website].

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